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finally got out from under the Romans? Bunch of lily-livers, they were. Peace
Empire contradiction in terms, kid.
Though the way the 3D pumps you kids full of crap, not even allowin any war
shows or anything, except for prettified pussy historicals, no wonder you
don t know which end of a gun does the business.
This seemed unfair to Bradley but he could see Dexter wasn t the kind of man
he had known, so he shut up.
Fair game?
What did that mean? A fair game was where everybody enjoyed it and had a
chance to win.
Maybe the world wasn t as simple as he had thought. There was something funny
and tingly about the air here, a crackling that made his skin jump, his nerves
strum.
Angel came back and lay beside them, wheezing, lugging a heavy contraption
with tripod legs they had just assembled.
Nelson was downslope, cradling his rifle. He arranged the tripod and lifted
onto it a big array of cylinders and dark, brushed-steel sliding parts unlike
anything Bradley had ever seen. Sweating, Nelson stuck a long, curved clip
into all this freshly made metal and worked the clacking mechanism. Nelson
smiled, looking pleased at the way the parts slid easily.
Bradley was trying to figure out what all the various weapons did when he
heard something coming fast down the road. He looked back along the snaky
black line that came around the far hills and saw a big shape flitting among
the ash trees.
It was an open-topped hauler filled with copper-jacketed mechs. They looked
like factory hands packed like gleaming eggs in a carton.
Dexter talked into his hushmike and pointed toward three chalk-white stones
set up by the road as aiming markers. The hauler came racing through the
crossroads and plunged up the straight section of the road in front of
Bradley. The grade increased here so they would slow as they passed the
stones.
Bradley realized they had no way of knowing what the mechs were doing there,
not for sure, and then he forgot that as a pulse-quickening sensation coursed
through him. Dexter beside him looked like a cat that knows he has a canary
stashed somewhere and can go sink his teeth into it any time he likes.
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When the hauler reached the marker stones Angel opened fire. The sound was
louder than anything
Bradley had ever heard and his first reaction was to bury his face in the
grass. When he looked up the hauler was slewing across the road and then it
hit the ditch and rolled.
The coppery mechs in the back flew out in slow motion. Most just smacked into
the grass and lay still. The hauler thumped solidly and stopped rolling. A few
of the factory mechs got up and tried to get behind the hauler, maybe thinking
that the rifle fire was only from Angel, but then the party
from across the road opened up and the mechs pitched forward into the ditch
and did not move.
Then there was quiet in the little valley. Bradley could hear the hauler s
engine still humming with electric energy and then some internal override cut
in and it whined into silence.
I hit that hauler square in the command dome, you see that? Angel said
loudly.
Bradley hadn t seen it but he said, Yes ma am, right.
Dexter said, Try for that every time. Saves ammo if we don t have to shoot
every one of them.
Nelson called up the slope, Those re factory mechs, they look like Es and Fs,
they re pretty heavy-
built.
Angel nodded, grinning. Easier just to slam em into that ditch.
Dexter didn t hear this as he spoke into his hushmike next to Bradley. Myron,
you guys get them off the road. Use those power-override keys and make them
walk themselves into that place where the gully runs down into the stream.
Tell em to jump right in the water.
What about the hauler? Bradley asked, and then was surprised at his own
boldness.
Dexter frowned a moment. The next batch, they ll think we hit it from the
air. There was plenty of that yesterday to the west.
I didn t see any of our planes today, Bradley said.
We lost some. Rest are grounded because some mechs started to catch on just
about sunset. They knocked three of our guys right out of the sky. Mechs won t
know that, though. They ll figure it s like yesterday and that hauler was just
unlucky. Dexter smiled and checked his own rifle, which he had not fired.
I ll go help them, Bradley said, starting to get up.
No; we only got so many of those keys. The guys know how to use em. You
watch the road.
But I d like to
Shut up, Dexter said in a way that was casual and yet was not.
Bradley used his pocket binoculars to study the road. The morning heat sent
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